Zynga’s Struggles Fail To Move Core Gamers At E3

The E3 conference could not do much good to Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA) as the core gamers were not interested in the company and they were not concerned with it, says a report from Allthingsd.

Michael Pachter, a securities analyst at Wedbush said, “These people don’t care about Zynga. It’s a different animal, social gaming. But Zynga will do fine.”

Why Core Gamers Care Little

Core gamers are reluctant to accept Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA) or any casual, social, or mobile-only game maker — as one of their own, reflecting an indifferent attitude.

Michael Futter, editor of Game Informer, said that after the news of employees being laid off by Zynga was heard, some of the gamers on Twitter celebrated to an extent that he felt he had to intervene and remind gamers that it is their livelihood. He said that those who celebrated were people who were in the core market and are frustrated over the virtual goods trading trend that was carried by Zynga into gaming.

Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA) started the trend of selling virtual goods through in-app purchases to make its games more popular.

The game industry uses various jargons like “whales, dolphins and minnows” to indicate the level of players and the amount that they spend. Those who take benefit of free to play are also given nicknames, but users taking advantage of freemium features are not taken into consideration.

According to the gamers there are two categories in the free-to-play category, one which is an “ethical” model and the other one being Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA).

Some Think Otherwise

Nassar Batley, managing director of digital media, however, said that he thinks that people do care about Zynga and that investors should watch over Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA) and find out the drawback and accordingly be more careful.

The E3 conference is not specifically held for mobile or social gaming. For the first time, there was also a segment in the conference over “mobile and online games”.

Zynga Struggling

Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA) is going through a plethora of problems. The social game maker slashed 18 percent of its employees last week, which totals 520 employees. The company is struggling to increase its market share in the mobile world.

EA Also Slashed Workforce

Supporters of Electronic Arts consider it as an example of a core gaming company. However, Electronic Arts also slashed jobs earlier and said in a statement issued in April that it will discontinue Facebook games like The Sims Social, SimCity Social and Pet Society.